Read Online A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - Free Book Online Page A

This was
borderline acceptable to Harriet Wheelwright-although my grandmother was a
shrewd enough businesswoman to know that the dollars and cents of teaching
(even at as prestigious a prep school as Gravesend Academy) were not exactly in
her league.
    "Yes!" my mother said in an exhausted voice.
"He's a teacher. He's been teaching dramatics in a private school in
Boston. Before that, he went to Harvard-Class of Forty-five."
    "Goodness gracious!" my grandmother said. "Why
didn't you begin with Harvard?"
    "It's not important to him," my mother said. But
Harvard ' was important enough to my grandmother to calm her troubled hands;
they left her brooch alone, and returned to rest in her lap. After a polite
pause, Lydia inched her wheelchair forward and picked up the little silver bell
and shook it for the maids to come clear-the very bell that had summoned Lydia
so often (only yesterday, it seemed). And the bell had the effect of releasing
us all from the paralyzing tension we had just survived-but for only an
instant. My grandmother had forgotten to ask: What is the man's name? For in
her view, we Wheelwrights were not out of the woods without knowing the name of
the potential new member of the family. God forbid, he was a Cohen, or a
Calamari, or a Meany! Up went my grandmother's hands to her brooch again.
    "His name is Daniel Needham," my mother said. Whew!
With what relief-down came my grandmother's hands! Need-ham was a fine old
name, a founding fathers sort of name, a name you could trace back to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony-if not exactly to Gravesend itself. And Daniel was as
Daniel as Daniel Webster, which was as good a name as a Wheelwright could wish
for.
    "But he's called Dan," my mother added, bringing a
slight frown to my grandmother's countenance. She had never gone along with
making Tabitha a Tabby, and if she'd had a Daniel she wouldn't have made him a
Dan. But Harriet Wheelwright
        was fair-minded
enough, and smart enough, to yield in the case of a small difference of
opinion.
    "So, have you made a date?" my grandmother asked.
    "Not exactly," my mother said. "But I know I'll
see him again.''
    "But you haven't made any plans?" my grandmother
asked. Vagueness annoyed her. "If he doesn't get the job at the
academy," my grandmother said, "you may never see him again!"
    "But I know I'll see him again!" my mother repeated.
    "You can be such a know-it-all, Tabitha Wheelwright,"
my grandmother said crossly. "I don't know why young people find it such a
burden to plan ahead." And to this notion, as to almost everything my
grandmother said, Lydia wisely nodded her head-the explanation for her silence
was that my grandmother was expressing exactly what Lydia would have expressed,
only seconds before Lydia could have done so. Then the doorbell rang. Both
Lydia and my grandmother stared at me, as if only my Mends would be uncouth
enough to make a call after dinner, uninvited.
    "Heavens, who is that?" Grandmother asked, and she and
Lydia both took a pointed and overly long look at their wristwatches-although
it was not even eight o'clock on a balmy spring evening; there was still some
light in the sky.
    "I'll bet that's ton!" my mother said, getting up from
the table to go to the door. She gave herself a quick and approving look in the
mirror over the sideboard where the roast sat, growing cold, and she hurried
into the hall.
    "Then you did make a date?" my grandmother asked.
"Did you invite him?"
    "Not exactly!" my mother called. "But I told him
where I lived!"
    "Nothing is exactly with young people, I've noticed,"
my grandmother said, more to Lydia than to me.
    "It certainly isn't," said Lydia. But I'd heard enough
of them; I had heard them for years. I followed my mother to the door; my
grandmother, pushing Lydia in her wheelchair in front of her, followed me.
Curiosity, which-in New Hampshire, in those days-was often said to be
responsible for the death of cats, had got